Developers go Nokia nuts

Developers harness Nokia enablers for exclusive application experiences, including latest imaging, location and social applications to deliver many features unique to Nokia

Today at Mobile World Congress, Nokia has announced a range of new applications from innovative developers for Nokia Lumia and Nokia Asha devices, many using unique platform and device enablers to deliver better quality application experiences.

To encourage further innovation, Nokia also announced the Asha Developer Competition, a contest to encourage developers to create high quality applications for Nokia Asha Touch smartphones. The competition is open to mobile developers worldwide and will award cash prizes and Nokia promotions for winning applications in four categories: music and entertainment; games; utilities and productivity; and news and information. The new apps will be judged on creativity, user experience and market potential.

'Quality is at the centre of our strategy with developers,' said Marco Argenti, senior vice president, developer experience. 'By making available key technology enablers in location, music and imaging we help developers do their best work for Nokia. Quality, tailormade apps translate into increased consumer engagement, which is the key for ecosystem success.'

A hefty range of apps have been launched at the show today from a wide variety of Nokia's partners. These include the GoPro Windows Phone 8 app, which allows action sports enthusiasts to connect their Nokia Lumia 920 via Wi-Fi to a GoPro HERO3 or HERO2 camera. They receive a live preview with which they can record videos and capture photos, access and change all of the camera settings, and view the latest videos and photos of the day. The Nokia exclusive picture-in-picture (PIP) feature overlays the Nokia Lumia camera view on top of the GoPro camera's live view and allows consumers to capture photos using Nokia's camera technology.

The Burton app is a snowboarding companion, featuring Burton Sequencer, a camera lens that uses Nokia imaging technology to combine a sequence of action shots taken with the Nokia Lumia camera in a single photo. Burton Forecast provides up-to-the minute snow and weather conditions at favourite ski resorts. Coming soon, Burton Friends will feature an augmented reality-based friend finder, making it easy to locate friends on the slopes. The app also boasts Burton Tune up, a feature that uses Nokia Music APIs to enable consumers to listen to a continuously updated selection of Burton finest playlists from within the application.

Nokia and Foursquare collaborated on two Foursquare app variants for Windows Phone. First to market, and available for all Windows Phone 8 devices, will be a version with new features, including voice integration, which allows people to use voice commands to detect what's trending and to search nearby places. The app will be NFC-enabled for content sharing, friend requests, and check-ins. It also integrates with Nokia Maps for a seamless app-to-app experience.

Nokia will also bring to market a second version of Foursquare, exclusive to Nokia Lumia. This version includes the capabilities of the one available for all Windows Phone 8 devices, and adds augmented reality to enhance the discovery experience through Nokia Lumia camera lenses.

Foursquare also plans to introduce a modernised app experience for Nokia Asha smartphones.

The official Tumblr Windows Phone 8 app will soon be available for all Windows Phone and Nokia Lumia customers. The Tumblr app will allow on-the-go posting of text, images, video, audio, links, quotes, and chats, and will let people follow and experience the world's creators seamlessly through the Tumblr dashboard. Additional features include Windows Phone exclusive voice command integration and use of Live Tiles to display the Tumblr Dashboard.

'We're excited to offer Tumblr to millions of creators worldwide on the Windows Phone platform,' said Derek Gottfrid, Tumblr's VP of Product. 'Windows Phone offers a fresh and fast-growing opportunity for our community to create and share what they love with the world.'

JobLens connects the physical world with social networks to revolutionize the way job-seekers find employment. The app integrates camera functionality with augmented reality and Nokia Maps to offer a 'Jobs Near Me' function, which shows job openings inside office buildings and establishments based on the consumer's location

WhatsApp, which supports Nokia Asha single SIM smartphones, will soon offer support for Asha dual SIM and unveil new features that deep link to the platform. WhatsApp will also continue its development on Windows Phone 8 with new features and a new user experience.

'Nokia has been an important partner to WhatsApp for many years,' said Neeraj Arora, VP of Business Development, WhatsApp. 'Delivering WhatsApp on Nokia Asha dual SIM smartphones in early Q2, while building on the momentum with Nokia Lumia for Windows Phone 8, fulfils our goals of ensuring that our customers around the world can continue to communicate seamlessly with the most important people in their lives. We look forward to great things ahead with Nokia.'

About Smart Chimps

Smart Chimps is the creation of freelance editor, writer and media trainer, Heather McLean. Heather has been involved in telecoms journalism since 2001, specialising in mobile since 2002. Find out more